Cotton Bowl won't change Snyder's recruiting model

He tried it once, believe it or not, during his first stint at Kansas State. The Wildcats were rolling, playing in bowl games every season, and Snyder decided to adjust his aim in recruiting. K-State started targeting the four- and five-star prospects, the players who would pay attention to the Wildcats because the team was winning.

“We went through that period of time when the program did make some improvement and became a little more of national program,” Snyder said. “At one particular point in time we thought, ‘Now we can get in on whatever those X-number of star guys are,’ that we could get in those doors.

“We got away from some of the basic things we believed in.”

K-State's philosophy was based on evaluation, on learning things about players that other programs didn’t know. When the focus changed, the Wildcats found they were losing on two fronts: They still weren’t getting the blue-chip recruits, Snyder said, but they also didn’t have time to scour the second tier.

“We spent an awful lot of time, an awful lot of effort, an awful lot of money,” Snyder said. “We’d get in the top five, get a visit, and maybe it would get pared down that we’re in top four, the top three or the top two.

“At the end of the day, we weren’t getting those guys.”

This is a roundabout way of saying that, no, the Wildcats aren’t going to start reeling in five-star prospects just because they won 10 games and made it to the Cotton Bowl this season.

As tempting as it might be to say the Wildcats need to capitalize on this season in recruiting, it’s not entirely clear that they do. They got here, after all, with the usual mix of unheralded recruits and junior college transfers, plus a handful of retreads from other Division I schools.

Even the people who make the rankings acknowledge that recruiting stars can be flawed. Talent evaluators focus primarily on physical abilities, while coaches evaluate more abstractly.

“Recruiting is fun and all, and I’ve made a nice living covering it, but way too much emphasis gets put on how much recruiting matters,” said Scott Kennedy, director of scouting at Scout.com.

K-State might be the perfect example. Snyder’s past three recruiting classes have been ranked last in the Big 12 by Rivals, but the players in those classes have formed the core of a top 10 team.

This suggests two possibilities: Either K-State’s players are severely undervalued by recruiting services, or the Wildcats are closing the talent gap entirely through coaching. Kennedy leans toward the latter.

“If you look at the recruiting rankings the last six or seven years, nothing’s really changed,” he said. “They’re still getting a lot of guys that nobody else is really after, still not winning a lot of head-to-head battles.

“What changed? That’s pretty easy. The head coach changed.”

Snyder’s approach emphasizes player development over recruiting, at least during the season. Assistant coaches will scout players on Friday nights, Snyder said, but most of their energy is focused on preparing for gameday.

“That’s just part of the philosophy,” Snyder said. “We’re going to do due diligence with the players we have here in our program.”

When it’s time to recruit, though, the Wildcats do their homework. Snyder will extend some early scholarship offers, but his stated preference is to wait until a player’s senior season to make a decision. This approach has merit, Kennedy said, because it allows K-State to claim players who blossom after other schools have filled their classes.

“Kansas State is still a BCS school in a big conference,” Kennedy said. “That approach will give you an advantage over a Conference USA team, especially with linemen. Linemen mature later, plain and simple. If you’re doing good evaluation, you can get some very good linemen.”

The early returns suggest K-State might get a slight bump in its 2012 recruiting. The Wildcats recently scored two significant commitments, landing wide receiver Marquez Clark and offensive tackle Tavon Rooks from Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.

Clark, a four-star prospect, set an NJCAA record with 98 receptions and 1,639 yards this season, while Rooks had offers from Arizona, Auburn, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

Juco players always have been part of Snyder’s recruiting approach, an approach that won’t change just because the Wildcats are playing in the Cotton Bowl.

“You’d always like to recruit better, but how we do it I don’t think would be any different,” Snyder said. “To me the most significant factor is assessment and how you evaluate young people.”

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